​Choosing to host the Olympics in Sochi was a ‘good choice’, and revenue will continue to flow into the city after the Games and attract more tourists and investors, says Deloitte, Heineken, and Swissotel.

“Ultimately [Sochi] has proven itself the right choice,”
David Owen, CEO of Deloitte CIS, told RT by email.

Billions tuned into the Sochi 2014 Olympics, more than 140,000
experienced it first-hand, and now Sochi and the Krasnaya Polyana
regions will continue to develop.

An avid skier, Russian President Vladimir Putin petitioned the
IOC to host the games in the Caucasian mountains, the President’s
favorite vacation spot in Russia. In 2007, the games were awarded
to Russia, and since then Olympic construction has highlighted
the development of Russia, which has a nearly $2 trillion
economy, and is now the eighth largest in the world.

“The Winter Olympics has created a world class winter sports
resort that can serve Russia for decades to come,” Owen
said.

Putin successfully campaigned for more events in the Krasnodar
region. Next up for Krasnaya Polyana is the G8 summit in June,
and then the Sochi is a Formula 1 race, to be held in the Olympic
Park in October.

The Fisht Olympic Stadium, where the opening and closing
ceremonies took place, has been built to FIFA regulations and
will be used as a soccer venue in the 2018 World Cup.

Of the 13 sports facilities, many are completely sustainable-
meaning they can be packed up and moved to other Russian cities-
or converted into exhibition centers or cycling tracks.

$6.5 billion was spent on the Olympic venues, and another $43
billion was spent to develop the Krasnodar region, including the
Black Sea resort of Sochi and the volcanic mountains in Krasnaya
Polyana.

Over 400 federal and regional facilities were built in
preparation for the Winter games, and 40,000 hotel rooms were
made available for guests.

“Much of the huge price tag for the games was developing
infrastructure - from roads to hotels to electricity transmission
- and there is no reason, if the region and the resort itself is
properly marketed locally and internationally, why this should go
to waste,” Owen said.

Olympic cities often go into severe debt after hosting the Games,
but because such a large majority of the investment was procured
from state-owned banks Sberbank, Gazprombank, and Vnesheconombank
(VEB), the debt is ‘manageable’, Fitch ratings agency said the day the Games began.

Skiing in the Tropics

Krasnaya Polyana is home to three ski resorts- Rosa Khutor, which
hosted the alpine and extreme sports events, Gazprom, which
hosted the biathlon and cross country races, and Gornaya Karusel,
which was open to the public for skiing. According to Afonina, a
multi-village ski-pass may be implemented to attract more
tourists.

Swissotel had a soft opening for its Krasnaya Polyana hotel in
January, located halfway up the Karusel mountain. The company got
100 percent of its investment money from Russia’s two largest
state-owned banks Sberbank and VTB, and also has a Sochi sea-side
location. During the Olympics, the 203-room slope-side hotel
operated at 70 percent capacity, and after, will open up the
second half which wasn't finished before the Games.

Gorky Gorod, situated at the bottom of the Karusel resort, is a
mountain town built from the ground up, and now boasts American
chains like Subway and Cinnabon, and even has a bowling alley.
Much of the Gorky Gorod area is an investment project funded by
Sberbank. The project, according to Afonina, is “still very
much at the beginning of its development” and there is more
to come.

Currently, Sochi attracts 4 million tourists per year. Before the
Olympics, just 1 percent came from abroad, Afonina told RT.

The year-long destination is an especially attractive to Russians
who work in the government and military, and are not permitted to
travel abroad.

The resort is more likely to attract local skiers and tourists
and not Russia’s European neighbors. Russia’s strict visa regime,
as well as distance, will provide obstacles to attracting skiers.

“I hear Rosa Khutor is awesome, but for me it’s too far away
we have lots of mountains and resorts in Switzerland,”
Christian Zueger, a Zurich-based chef at the Swiss house in
Olympic park, told RT.

There are few international flights to Sochi's Adler
International Airport. There is one from Istanbul, as Turkish
residents don’t need a visa to visit Russia, plus a daily
Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt. Austrian Airlines used to have a
flight to Sochi, but cancelled it a year ago.

Sochi wasn’t the only option for the Winter Olympics. Russia
could have put forth a bid for Mt. Elbrus, Europe’s tallest
mountain, located on the Georgian border, which even in the
summer has sub-zero temperatures.

“Sochi was a good choice. Its existing infrastructure and its
relative proximity to the main cities of European Russia give far
more potential than any other mountain resort in Russia would
have had,” Owen told RT.

Investors impressed

Sochi has boosted Russia’s global profile, and Russian business
experts are confident the massive infrastructure makeover will
pay off for the city.

"I’ve seen Sochi develop over the last three years. I’m
really impressed what they’ve put together, and my grandkids will
see Sochi as one of the places to be," Hans Tuijt, Global
Activation Director for Heineken, told RT.

Tuijt heads up the Netherland’s hospitality facility in Sochi,
and said he recommends Russia as an investment, but with a
warning- to know the local market.

"I’ve lived around the world, and I always tell people, if
you don’t know the local country, don’t invest," Tuijt said.

Heineken has taken a big hit in its Russian sales, driven by
stringent alcohol laws and taxes which have cut
consumption by nearly 15 percent, but the Sochi Olympics has
renewed its dedication to Russia.

"We have more than 3,000 employees in Russia and we are a
dedicated family company and we only leave countries if it is a
political risk," Tuijt told RT.

The city of nearly 400,000 people has had a complete makeover.
More than 85 percent of the Sochi infrastructure had to be built
from scratch, according to Jean-Claude Killy, chair of the
International Olympic Committee's coordination commission for the
Games.

“Despite the early teething problems with this event, Russia
has projected itself onto the world stage as a modern country
with the confidence to deliver a major global sporting event on
schedule and to high standards. The benefits in terms of
potentially attracting future direct investment are hard to
quantify, but real nevertheless,” Owen said.